“In this case, I don’t believe we ripped from the headlines. I believe the actual story ripped us off,” series show-runner Warren Leight said yesterday about Wednesday’s premiere episode inspired by the international banker accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid.

While the real-life case’s twists and turns made for tantalizing headline news, it wound up being “quite annoying,” Leight said “We had to do rewrites. Everything we had in our initial draft” had to be changed.

He joked that the story was so fast-moving that they worried the final scenes would have to be shot live on the day the episode airs.

In the fictionalized version of the story, the attacker is an Italian dignitary.

Leight also addressed some of the changes that the veteran series will see in its 13th season.

Now that the original “L&O” and “Criminal Intent” are off the air, “SVU” will incorporate more law and psychology into each episode than it had done in previous seasons.

But, he said, “It’s still ‘SVU,’ the shows are still emotionally driven and loaded.”

As for series star Christopher Meloni’s sudden departure from the show after last season’s finale, co-star Richard Belzer noted that there will be closure — “We don’t ignore the loss of [Detective] Stabler, we address it,” he said.